This is a free opensource Loop subdivision plugin for Google Sketchup. Loop subdivision smooths hard edges to give a more rounded organic looking shape. This plugin has not been tested extensively, so please save any important Sketchup models before using this plugin on them.

Installation instructions using the RBZ format - Sketchup 2015, 2013, Make & version 8.2 and up:

Sketchup introduced an easier way to install plugins. Download the RBZ version of the plugin (loop_subdiv.rbz) to your harddrive - it is a zipped file but don't extract it. Then in Sketchup click on the install extensions button. It's found under Preferences > Extensions > Install Extension. Clicking this button will bring up a file browser window where you can can selectl loop_subdiv.rbz from your hard drive, and SketchUp will then install it for you.

If using the above method does not work, this is an alternative method which will work on Sketchup 2015. To install the plugin you need to download the file above (loop-subdiv.rb) to your Sketchup ShippedExtensions folder.

On a Windows PC. If you have installed Sketchup on the C: drive then this folder will be at C:\program files\Sketchup\Sketchup 2015\ShippedExtensions.

This is an alternative method which will work on versions including Sketchup 6, 7, 8 and Sketchup Make (Sketchup 2013).. To install the plugin you need to download the file above (loop-subdiv.rb) to your Sketchup plugins folder.

Location of the Sketchup plugins folder, [VERSION] stands for the version number of Sketchup (6, 7, 8 or 2013).

On a Windows PC. If you have installed Sketchup on the C: drive then this folder will be at C:\program files\google\google sketchup [VERSION]\plugins.

Using the loop subdivision plugin:

Re-start Sketchup, there should now be an extra option "Loop subdivide smooth" in the tools menu

To use the plugin select your model and click "Loop subdivide smooth" in the tools menu.

A box will appear asking how many times you want to repeat the subdivision (1,2,3 or 4 times). More repeats gives a smoother model, but also takes longer, so try 1 or 2 first.

You can choose whether the subdivided object has softened and smoothed edges.

If you have a large model (with lots of faces) the smoothing will take a long time so be prepared to wait!

The smoothed model is added to a new layer(called Loop_subdiv_XXXX)

The original selection is deleted (but you can Undo the operation to get it back)

For the technical details see the Hoppes and co-workers paper: Piecewise Smooth Surface Reconstruction . This paper also describes how to do partial subdivision, using crease edges and darts, which are not yet implemented in this plugin.

You could also try exporting your Sketchup model to the Blender or Meshlab programs, which have lots of subdivision features.

Please feedback or leave comments about problems or suggestions for the plugin. This plugin is opensource, so I welcome any improvements in the code.

There are known issues with non-manifold meshes where adjacent faces do not share edges (try smoothing a captial E), I am looking for solutions. Also when smoothing components the face materials are lost in the smoothed object.

There is no extra icon on the toolbar, but look for the Loop subdivision smooth entry in the Tools menu. Also if you install the plugin while Sketchup is running you will need to restart it to see the menu option.

Loop sub-division produces the best results when the triangles of the mesh are roughly equilateral. Unfortunately, the meshes that Sketchup produces are optimized to produce the lowest number of triangles, this means there are often long skinny triangles in there - and when you loop subdivide the model it will not look good. This is worse for particular shapes, a cube should smooth OK, but a thin disc will probably not.

As far as I know there is no re-meshing plugin for Sketchup - but something like that would help. Otherwise export your model to an STL file and you can smooth it (or remesh it) using the free Meshlab program.

At first it seemed it didnt work but after going thru and clicked unclicked the smooth and not command from the drop down menu it worked great... Just looking for a chance to apply this in one of my work! Thanks!

Is there a way to use this concept to subdivide the mesh without making it spherical, simply remove the tension that pushes the mesh as a sphere. This will help when calculating radiosity in Renderlights, a simple room with subdivided mesh will just look much better on the rediosity engine.

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There appears to be an asymmetry in the Loop subdivision plugin. First let me say I think it is great and if I were using it for a freeform object or to create something that would be covered in a texture, I woud not have minded or probably even have noticed. I shoud Iaso saw that whie I an an engineer with extensive CAD experience, Iam a complete Sketchup NOOB and coud be making a bonehead error. That siad, I am trying to create a housing for my recumbent Trike in order to turn it into a velomobile. I am just starting and exploring the idea of using flat trianglar panels instead of compound curves. this will allow me to fab out of flat sheet rather than have to mold the housing. OK, that's the project. I was excited about the plugin because it did mostly what I wanted and when i created some blocky shaps and subdivided them (without smoothing) I got some very promising results. Upon closer inspection, i discovered that the resulting meshes were asymmetric, often quite beautiful but not what I was looking for.

I then tried simpler shapes. I created a rectangle and pulled the face to create a solid. I then drew a line on the front face from right side midpoint to left side mid point. I then moved the mid point of the upper edge of the front face to the midpoint of this line, creating a wedge shape and subdivided at level 1, without smoothing. the mesh on the top of the part is great, but the bottom of the part is asymmetric which is causing asymmetry of the ower part of the two sides. (BTW, a rectangular solid, without the taper, meshes symmetrically) I have tried several variations and have yet to come up with a completely symmetric mesh.

Since I am still just playing with simple shapes I am concerned what will happen when I add details.

to download the loop_subdivide.rb plugin, you right click the link and save as to your computer. On Mac OSX I simply went to Google SketchUp 7, using the contextual menu, and pressed Show Package Contents, it then reveals the plugins folder, where I moved the plugin into.

My mistake, I lead you in the wrong direction: just discovered on another website that the location of the plugin folder you need to install it is not "Show Packge Contents" but actually MacHD/Library/Application Support/Google SketchUp 6/SketchUp/ Plugins folder